Structure out of chaos
Donna’s ability to create structure out of chaos and to translate spoken ideas into coherent text was a key strength in the completion of our project within the short timeframe we had available. She does not become personally attached to her writing, significantly easing the editing phase and effectively using an iterative process for best results.
Scott Hughes, Director, Community Business Banking, Vancity
I’ve had the good fortune of being involved in twenty-five projects with Vancity, between 2006 and 2010. A few of the the most memorable ones include:
Story series (2010):
This was one of my favourite Vancity projects. Being accountable to staff in three departments, I interviewed over forty community members who had benefited from either a Vancity not-for-profit grant or a micro-loan. From these interviews I wrote twenty stories that linked Vancity’s commitment to projects that focus on acting on climate change, facing poverty and growing the social economy with individuals who benefited from their support.
Each One Teach One (2008):
A truly innovative series of 45-minute seminars was conceived by the staff of Community Business Banking to provide Canadian new-comers with basic information related to a variety of financial issues, such as “Basic Banking”, “Cost of Borrowing”, “Understanding Contracts” and “Taxation and Filing. I had the privilege of developing the seven seminars in the series as well as a facilitator’s guide to train Vancity branch staff to deliver these seminars to immigrant-serving service organizations in their communities.
Financial Fitness workshop series (2008, 2009 & 2010):
For this project I had the great privilege of working not just with Vancity experts, but with external accountants and a lawyer to develop a series of three workshops targeted to helping not-for-profits develop stronger financial acumen. The bankers, accountants and lawyer brought their expertise to the table while I added adult education expertise to develop three, interactive, full-day workshops. In addition, I developed comprehensive handbooks to accompany the workshops. (Two years after the first delivery of the series, I edited the existing handbooks and a new title on managing a social enterprise).
Financial Fitness Facilitator’s Guide (2009):
A year after the series of Financial Fitness workshops was delivered in Vancouver and Toronto, Vancity decided to develop a Guide that would allow any not-for-profit in any community to make use of the workshop curriculum and handbooks. My job was to create a detailed guide for how a community organization would go about presenting their own Financial Fitness workshop series.
Ethical Policy one-sheets (2007):
Vancity has an Ethical Policy that is to be admired. That said, as a policy document it’s not the easiest or most compelling reading. This project called on me to write summary documents for each of the five policy areas that were easy-to-read and understand by vancity staff and members alike.
Ethical Policy self-dircted training (2007):
Vancity has a robust Ethical Policy that all staff is expected to be familiar with. To support a consistent level of understanding of the Policy across two dozen departments within Vancity, I was hired to develop a series of self-directed training modules. Using SurveyMonkey I created a course that allowed employees to see where their knowledge about the policy needed to be improved and also provided managers with the assurance that all their reports were familiar with the Policy.
ABLED Marketing Plan (2008):
ABLED – Advice and Business Loans for Entrepreneurs with Disabilities – is one of Vancity’s products targeted to supporting small businesses. After four years serving this market, they needed some fresh thinking about how to reach more individuals looking for business launch support.
‘Ready, Set, Launch’ seminar series (2008, 2009 & 2010):
One of the recommendations of the ABLED marketing plan was to develop seminars that would be of value to new and aspiring entrepreneurs (not only those who self-identify as having a disability). Working with individuals from across Vancity, I developed the strategy and outreach plan for the series, provided seminar development support to staff facilitators, and created and delivered several marketing-related seminars within the series.
Redevelopment of Vancity.com/MyCommunity and Vancity.com/MyBusiness (2007 & 2008):
Although I reported to the Director of Interactive Marketing, these two projects required consultation with close to 20 staff members working in the areas of Community Business Banking and the Sustainability Group. Although I was originally hired to simply re-write stale copy, it quickly became apparent that program growth and changes had left the information architecture (IA) unable to meet the needs of program staff – or of Vancity members. Fully half of this project became a strategy exercise, working across three departments to build an IA that would serve all of their needs.